Safety issues and proposed solutions

Synthetic bacterias safety concerns:

The major safety concern in use of synthetic biology is it's exposure to the natural environment, where synthetic organisms could impact the the ecosystem in unpredictable and unidentified ways. For the purpose of our reasearch, our goal is to devalop synthetic bacteria that can effectibely degrade Toluene in the tailings water. However, synthetic bacteria can not be directly injected into the natural ecosystem due to following reasons:

Synthetic bacteria can disrupt the food chains and food webs in natural ecosystem
Synthetic bacteria could be beneficial, at the same time could be lethal to other species living in the same community
Mutations in synthtic bacteria can be lethal and irrevesible
Synthtic bacteria would compete with pre-existing species, which can potentially lead to extinction of native species

Propositions for addressingsafety concerns

We have devaloped a software - Community Flux Balance Analysis - to model different metabolic pathways and interspecies interactions within a community. This would allow us to predict the symbiotic relationships between different species present in the community.
We have designed a membrane bioreactor which confines bacteria into certain chamber while affectively degrading Toluene. The primary purpose of this bioreactor is to keep synthtic bacteria entirely sparate from the environment. This would allow us to use our bacteria effectively to degrade Toluene and not worry about the environmental threats it may pose. However, in order to apply our software we have to mimic the natural environment in each compartment of the bioreactor. This can be easily achieved by allowing naturally occuring bacteria to exist in each compartment.

Further details of safety concerns and solutions

Safety concerns	Proposed Solutions
Introduction of synthetic organisms into the natural environment	Use of 0.2 µm pore size membranes effectively keeps all the bacteria confined inside each shelf
Public perception of synthetic organisms	Public outreach and educating people about our project and its viability
How effective is membrane at confining the bacteria	Size of E-Coli on average is 0.5µm x 2µm.Hence using 0.2µm pore size membrane, ensures essentially no bacteria escapes
What if some shelves fail to confine bacteria	If one of the shelves fails to confine bacteria, the bacteria will be caught back into the next membrane in the following shelf. An extra membrane will be installed at the exit of the bioreactor, to make sure no bacteria escapes
What happens if shelves over flow	Each shelf has its automatic water shut off mechanism which is connected to water level monitor in each shelf. If ever there is an overflow of water, the shut off valves will prevent any water from escaping the bioreactor
Safety issues associated with cleaning of the bioreactor after prolonged periods of time	For the maintenance of the bioreactor, each shelf can be maintained separately while keeping the rest of the shelves working. For this reason, bioreactor does not need to be shut off for maintenance. Hence, bacteria and other compounds can be safely discarded without disrupting the flow of water

References:

Safety in iGEM

Please visit the main Safety page to find this year's safety requirements & deadlines, and to learn about safe & responsible research in iGEM.

On this page of your wiki, you should write about how you are addressing any safety issues in your project. The wiki is a place where you can go beyond the questions on the safety forms, and write about whatever safety topics are most interesting in your project. (You do not need to copy your safety forms onto this wiki page.)

Safe Project Design

Does your project include any safety features? Have you made certain decisions about the design to reduce risks? Write about them here! For example:

Choosing a non-pathogenic chassis
Choosing parts that will not harm humans / animals / plants
Substituting safer materials for dangerous materials in a proof-of-concept experiment
Including an "induced lethality" or "kill-switch" device

Safe Lab Work

What safety procedures do you use every day in the lab? Did you perform any unusual experiments, or face any unusual safety issues? Write about them here!

Safe Shipment

Did you face any safety problems in sending your DNA parts to the Registry? How did you solve those problems?

Team:Toronto/Safety